Sex, S&M, and the Newly Single Girl

Disclaimer: this writing is me thinking out loud. It’s not about fishing for compliments, it’s about processing some stuff. While it’s always nice to get those compliments, I’m much more interested in helpful suggestions/advice, and thoughts from people who experience this stuff in a similar way.

I had an interesting conversation Friday night with someone whose friendship and support and words of wisdom have been important to me over the last couple years. We were talking about life, death, and the end of relationships, and where I feel I am in my healing process. In the course of the conversation he said, “You need to get laid.” I laughed and said, “Well that’s a given, but I’m not interested in sex with a random person, so just how do I go about that?” He spoke then of only doing things and interacting with people who raise his vibration, not lower it. I’ve been ruminating on that thought.

I have been sort of in my own cocoon of grief and healing, both of death and the end of a long relationship. I’ve been in that cocoon for a pretty long time now, but I’m feeling the healing that has been occurring and I’m opening myself back up to things outside of me. Probably a very good thing, since just living in my own cocoon isn’t healthy. In that opening, I’m beginning to ‘see’ others again. And I realize that I’m not the only person experiencing death and the end of a relationship. I haven’t been a very good friend lately.

I’ve never been what I consider a casual SM player. For me, SM isn’t just about the physical sensations and pain, it’s about the energy exchange. Oh don’t get me wrong, that physical stuff is awesome, but I feed off of the energy exchange much more than I do the physicality of the SM. Sex is much the same for me. It’s not just about getting off, although there are times that’s good too, it’s about the energy exchange. Can I enjoy playing around without that energy? Sure. But that for me is short and sweet, nothing more than a quickie that releases a bit of physical energy, but doesn’t do much to raise my vibration. In fact, after it’s done, I often feel adrift and wonder why I bothered.

I’m never going to be the girl who trots off to APEX every weekend looking for someone to beat me. It’s hard enough for me to approach someone I respect and ask them to scene. The same is true of sex and ‘dating’. Part of that comes from my own baggage and history, and part of it comes from feeling a bit insecure in my appeal – as in, “why would that person want to ________ with me?” kind of thing. (No, this is not me fishing for people to tell me how awesome I am.) Each time I feel drawn to someone in that way, I am not able to make the approach. I look around the room and see others who would be found much more interesting, and I just can’t take the kind of confirmation that comes from rejection. And so I tell myself I’m content on my own, and for the most part, that is very true. But there is a level of human interaction that I miss out on by doing that. And so I’m trying to work that out in my head so that I can find the space to feel confident in taking the emotional risks involved in that hurdle.

And then all of that thinking made me wonder about those people I see who have found the end of their own relationships. Am I alone in this line of thinking? Or are some of my friends who have also recently experienced their own relationship ending feeling similarly? And if we’re all feeling these kinds of things, what can each of us do to change that in ourselves? How can we take the vulnerability we feel and shore ourselves up so that rejection that may come doesn’t shut us down?

Every single one of us risks rejection when we step outside of that zone. I know the kind of person who draws me in and the kind of person who doesn’t. And so as I sit here thinking about this, I realize that it works the same for the person I might want to approach. Their lack of interest says nothing about me as a person, it just means I don’t appeal to them. At least, that’s how it works for me, so I imagine, in my logical brain, that’s how it works for them, too. So, processing that, I have to question my own insecurities where that’s concerned. How do I step out from my body image issues, my aging issues, my obnoxiousness issues, and not internalize that rejection?

And sitting here writing this makes me sort of laugh. Because I haven’t been rejected by anyone, since I haven’t actually approached anyone. Which makes the logic of it all quite circular. But it is what it is and so I’m trying to grow from it all. So I’m posting it anyway.